Release 25 Instructions

[A SotA Public Forum post by Starr Long]

Greetings Avatars,

Please read this entire message, as well as the linked instructions and known issues.

Thank you for being a loyal backer and follower of Shroud of the Avatar. Release 25 access for all backers at First Responder level and above begins this Thursday, December 17, at 10:30 AM US Central Time (16:30 UTC).

As 2015 comes to a close with our final release of the year, we are making major strides forward and gaining more momentum every release. The Story continues to march across the map with multiple new scenes every release. Agriculture completes the final major missing component for Crafting.  Customizability increases with multiple dye options, and PVP expands to include Guild Warfare. We are also making steady progress with Localization thanks to our player translators. While there is still much work left to do on areas such as performance, service hardening, game balance, and a handful of missing features, we feel pleased with the progress we are making. Thank you for helping us not just progress, but progress the right way. Your feedback and guidance is helping us make the game we all want to play. So ring in the New Year by playing Release 25 and congratulate yourself (not us!) on a job well done!

Yet again, I want to express a huge amount of gratitude to our Dev+ backers who tested all of the items below on the QA server and uncovered lots of bugs. They also provided editorial feedback on this post, so they are a big reason that this post actually matches what is in the game, and that it is easy to read.

While we are getting closer to launch, we are still in a constant state of change, and we do not yet have in-game systems to inform players of these changes, or to share ways to help them to explore new content and systems. This means we rely entirely on this message, and the linked instructions and known issues to convey the current game state. We regularly have to answer questions or filter bug reports because some players elect not to read this valuable information. By taking a few moments to read through this information, a great deal of our time and efforts can be redirected to focus on new “unanswered” questions, and addressing critical issues impacting each release. We greatly appreciate you taking the time to review this post, and for all the truly valuable feedback you continue to provide.

Also, remember that while we are providing new content with each release, our community is working overtime to make new events for you to enjoy. So, be sure to check out a couple of the Community Events Calendars run by our community members (via in-game book or the player run websites Avatars Circle Community Events and Events of the Avatars calendar).

Without further ado, here are the R25 deliverables.

Key:

• Plain Text: The original plan for the Release deliverables. We intentionally preserve the original text so that our backers can compare plan versus actuals.
• Italics: Extra notes and new deliverables
• Strikethrough: These are items that did not make the release

RELEASE 25, December 17, 2015

• Story: More towns with story content will appear in Novia along with the dungeon of Artifice on the island of Elysium that is the climax of the Love Quest storyline.
  • Artifice Delayed: We chose to spend more time polishing the layout and visuals of Hilt Fortress.
  • Hilt Fortress: Within the Blackblade Mountains, between South Paladis to the west and Midmaer to the east, is the narrow cleft of Nightshade Pass. At its center, the winding pass opens up into a bowl-shaped canyon in which rests a shimmering lake fed by icy water flowing down from glaciers hidden higher in the mountains to the north. On the south end of this valley can be seen the tall volcanic mountain of Hilt that gives this region its name. It’s on the north end of the canyon, however, that the area’s most interesting feature can be found. It is now over 200 years ago (during the time depicted in the Blade of the Avatar book) that the Obsidian general Karpasic ordered the building of the fortress at Hilt. It was created as a conceit for the glory of the Obsidian military power… something which didn’t please the Cabal of the Obsidian Sorcerers. Furthermore, according to legend, it was where the military discovered, deep below the earth, the wondrous Obsidian Forge. During its time, however, the excuse of its building was to further fortify and secure Nightshade Pass itself, since enemy armies could not easily travel through the valley pass without using the bridged ford located between the lower walls of the fortress, exposing them to fire from soldiers and mages stationed on the battlements above. These days, 200 years after the fall of the Obsidians, the abandoned fortress has been overrun by wild animals and even darker creatures that either wish to make a lair of this ancient edifice, seek the treasure buried within, or desire the power offered by the Obsidian Forge (if the ancient legends hold any truth). But travelers beware! Bandits haunt the shadowed trails of Nightshade Pass, trolls and kobolds have been seen wandering the ruins, the undead of the ancient armies poses a constant threat, and the terrible might of the volcanic mountain of Hilt is a constant reminder of the elemental fury of nature itself. NOTE: In R25, this scene is in and includes creatures to fight but the Obsidian Forge is not yet functioning.
  • South Varisalla Foothills:  For centuries, the Varisalla Mountain Range has been a highly spiritual place. A large temple resides in the foothills that was once a beautiful retreat, dutifully managed by its elven caretakers. For generations, the temple was a home of thoughtful contemplation for scholars and pilgrims of all races. Decades ago, internal strife among the elves came to the center. Peaceful elves quarreled with their warmongering brothers. Disharmony turned to violent conflict, which eventually erupted into a brutal civil war. The center was overrun by the warmongering elves, who slaughtered every other temple resident in a virtually one-sided battle. The victors vandalized the structures and looted or destroyed the intellectual and spiritual treasures within. The institution never recovered. There are rumors that a handful of scholars escaped with precious tomes and works of art and hid them in the hills before being caught and killed. Scavengers still remain in the area, including human freebooters and warmongering elves.
  • North Naryad Pinelands: For as long as anyone can remember, the Pinelands have been the primary source of lumber for Harvest and other nearby communities. Scores of dedicated workers have enjoyed good, fulfilling lives among the trees…until recently. A lumber company took a first step toward exploring mining opportunities in the area and accidentally released something horrible. It’s not yet clear what’s happened, but all the workers are dead or missing and bandits are already picking through the now-abandoned operation.
  • Kiln: This small town is just east of the Blackblade Mountains, and a short journey south of the fortress of Hilt. As such, its central position sees more than a few traders and adventurers passing through, including the mysterious fauns who silently serve their satyr masters. (It is rumored that one of the fauns rests here, recuperating, and may be more talkative than most…)
  • Polish: Various scenes were revisited for polish related to spawning, sky, and water
    • North Brightbone Woods: Respawned entire scene, added dynamic / nighttime NPC spawns, cleaned up resource nodes, added discoveries, propped out major POIs, and made minor terrain adjustments.
    • Ravensmoor: Fixed Torq’dawl pathing in water.
    • Highvale: Polished tutorial experience to fix the infamous “I can’t find the key!” issues.
    • Resurrection Ankhs: Did a pass through game added resurrection ankhs to many scenes where they were missing.
    • New Water: The new water system was added to the following scenes
      • Verdantis Shardfall
      • Ardoris
      • Kingsport
      • Nightshade Pass
    • New Sky: We added the new sky system to some more maps.
      • Kingsroad
      • South Ravenswood
      • Graff Gem Mines 
• Property Tax: Property ownership will now incur regular fees (unless you are using a tax free deed from a pledge). If the fees are not paid, the player will lose their claim, and their possessions (including the house and decorations) will be moved to their bank.
  • Property Tax Delayed: The system of property tax has been pushed to a future release so that we could focus on fixing some decoration bugs and patcher issues. Some basic functions are complete and we anticipate this going live in R26.
• Combat: The cover system will be introduced and will modify attack and defense values when you (or your target) are behind cover.
  • Cover Delayed: We chose to focus our time on fixing various bugs with combat and animations as well as updates to Taming and Undead behaviors.
  • Crystal Sword: This incredibly rare and powerful weapon will kill almost any foe in a single blow. However the crystal blade shatters on impact leaving the owner with merely a hilt. This sword is only available for Founder era or older backers who have at least a Founder level pledge (Founder Founders!).
  • Taming Updates: We made various updates to taming related to healing and collars.
    • Animal Healer (new): This new skill in the taming tree allows you to heal your tamed creatures. This skill cannot be used on humans but Life magic healing spells can still heal tamed animals.
    • Animal Resurrection (new): This new skill in the Taming School allows you to raise your fallen tamed creature from the dead. This skill cannot be used on humans but Life magic resurrection spells can still raise tamed animals.
    • Taming Cost Tuning: Previously, reagents (collars are considered a reagent) were consumed immediately on use of a skill, regardless of whether the skill succeeded or failed. Now, we can make that consumption happen based on success or failure. This has allowed us to tune collar recovery chance versus creature level in such a way that failed attempts on lower level creatures will not consume collars at all, but as you tame larger creatures, the collar loss on failure will increase (offset of course by levelling the Collar Recovery skill). This should help address the feedback that the cost was prohibitive for taming at lower levels.
  • Undead Resurrection by Mage: Previously, higher level undead would come back from being destroyed multiple times unless they were killed with magic. Now this only happens if an Undead Mage (Lich or Skeletal Mage) cast resurrection on their corpse. This increases the level of strategy involved, while at the same time makes it much more clear what is happening.
  • Specialized Trainers: Most trainers will only train skills to the third tier level now. For more advanced skills, trainers that are the masters of a given skill must be tracked down and found somewhere in Novia. The knowledge of the most advanced skills may require truly legendary feats to unlock…
  • Acrobatics Fix: This Light Armor skill now provides movement bonus properly.
  • Undead Mastery and Mummified Undead Fixes: These Death Magic innate abilities now properly increase the strength and health of summoned Undead.
  • Stealth Fixes: Fixed some weapons being visible when stealthed, stealth being broken by a miss, and stealth being highly visible against water
  • Immolation Fix: Fixed issue where the effect of this spell could interrupt attempts to cast it again.
  • Starting Health/Focus: To improve survivability of starting characters and to flatten out the gains at the highest levels, the math for hit point and focus calculations has changed. Players will now start with 100/100 instead of 50/50 and the gains for level has been reduced slightly. Players at high levels should still have slightly more hit points and focus than in previous releases.
  • Beneficent Blessing (new):  This new passive skill in the life tree gives a significant bonus to the effectiveness of heals cast on others only.  
  • Fire Magic:  Fire magic spells now hit for slightly less damage up front but their damage-over-time durations have been extended, grow in damage over time, and stack (even with the same spell). They should once again be the most damaging class of spells once mastered if they are not countered.
  • Soothing Rain Fix: Updated to not trigger combat mode. Players can now start their rainy dance parties without having to pull out their weapons!
• Creatures: Our creature list will continue to expand with Chaos Demons and Wisps.
  • Chaos Daemon Delayed: Much like our other bosses (Dragon, Troll, etc), we wanted to give the Daemon enough time both for visuals and behaviors. We have made a bunch of progress with the concept, mesh, texture, and animations, but it definitely needs more time. Meanwhile, we have been posting progress and getting feedback to our Dev+ backers as mentioned in Update 153. We hope to have it live in R26.
  • Wisp Delayed: While we were able to build the Wisp itself, we ran out of time to build its behaviors. We hope to have it live in R26.
  • Mixed Breed Dogs and Cats: Four new mixed breeds can be found in the game including:
    • Shepherd Mutt
    • Husky Mutt
    • Calico Mix
    • Tabby Mix
  • Baby Llama: This lovable little llama from the Pack Animals Stretch Goal Store is now in the game. We are not responsible for any spitting nor repeated questions of “Is your mama a llama?”
  • Clockwork Raven: This mechanical avian pet pledge reward (Royal Artisan and above) is now in the game.
  • Satyr Berserk Fix: We fixed some issues that were preventing Satyrs entering their berserk state when their Faun slaves were killed
• Guild Warfare: Guilds will now be able to declare war on each other.
  • Guild Warfare: Guild Leaders can now declare war against another guild by delivering a Guild War Challenge to another guild leader. If the other guild leader accepts, the two guilds are now at war and all guild members are flagged “Open PVP” for the duration of the war. The guild leader can set that duration to be between one to ten days. At the end of the war, the guild with the best kills vs. deaths ratio wins the war. The winner receives an in-game decorative plaque that commemorates the war. Long term, the system will expand to include enforced minimum guild size, cost for challenge payable by both guilds, and rewards with game functions.
  • Guild Leader Icon: Guild War Challenges must be made in person, so to assist with this players, that are Guild Leaders can now have an icon displayed along with their nameplate overhead.
• Agriculture: Players will be able to start planting and harvesting as Agriculture appears in the game.
  • Agriculture System: Players can now plant seeds, nurture them, and harvest resources from them on player properties in this first iteration of the Agriculture System. Public Farms and Gardens will hopefully appear in Release 26, so this will not be restricted to only player properties in the long term. Plants go through multiple stages (seedling, immature plant with no produce, mature plant with produce) and must be watered (and fertilized in a future release). Current plants take 1 to 3 days to mature.
  • Planting Beds and Pots: These items must be placed down first before something can be planted. Players interact with them as a crafting station and place a hoe, seed, and water to generate a seedling. We hope to add furrows to this list in R26. For now, water is a purchasable ingredient, but long term it will be a resource that can be gathered from water sources.
  • Plants: The following plants can be planted and harvested using the Agriculture system.
    • Immortality Fruit: This Immortal Adventurer pledge reward plant generates a fruit that, when harvested, can be consumed to restore an Avatar to full health. Note that if you already claimed the original one in game, you will keep that old one until the next wipe, and you will receive an immortality seed, hoe and planter as an additional reward in R25.
    • Royal Elderberry: This Immortal Adventurer pledge reward plant generates the main ingredient for Royal Purple Dye. Note that if you already claimed the original one in game you will keep that old one until the next wipe, and you will receive a Royal Elderberry seed and planter as an additional reward in R25.
    • Garlic, Nightshade, Mandrake (Reagents): In addition to being available in game, these are also Founder era pledge rewards for Citizen, Knight, and Lord pledges (see pledge pages for details).
    • Apple Tree
    • Cotton Bush
    • Pumpkin Vine
• Player Owned Towns: We will continue to expand the number of templates.
  • New Templates Delayed: We focused on polishing existing templates and agriculture assets instead.
  • Template Polish: We went through and flattened more areas in the following templates: Snowy Mountain 01, Swamp 01, Forest 01, and Desert 01 (also removed new water that had flooded dry lake bed)
  • NPC Pathing vs. NPC Buildings: We fixed an issue where placed pets and NPCs would ignore the NPC buildings and just walk right through them. Unfortunately it means that, for now, NPCs cannot be placed in nor move inside NPC buildings (the irony of this is killing me). We hope to have this fixed in the next few releases.
  • Dynamic Player Owned Towns: We added another round of dynamic Player Owned Towns to the game. We also fixed issues, converted biomes and upgraded sizes of several POTs. Here’s a complete list of all changes as well as POT location maps for Novia and Hidden Vale.
    • Corvus Peak: Added interconnection with Horned Society.
    • Dracheninsel: Upgraded to Metropolis.
    • Fox Keep: Removed POT; pledge converted to store credits.
    • FrostSpire: Chaned location.
    • Heorth: Changed location.
    • Horned Society: Added interconnection with Corvus Peak and Verdantis Shardfall.
    • Isle of Ghosts: Upgraded to Hamlet.
    • Isle of Nylorac: Upgraded to Hamlet.
    • Jade Valley: Upgraded to Town. Updated boat locations.
    • Kai: Added interconnection with Misika.
    • Malus : Changed location. Added interconnection with Serenite and Vengeance.
    • Misika: Added interconnection with Kai.
    • Nivenshire: Upgraded to City.
    • Old Penshire Wharf: Added interconnection with Rats’ Nest.
    • PenFranc Folklore: New addition to Hidden Vale.
    • Pineville: New addition to Novia.
    • Port Phoenix: Updated boat locations.
    • Rats’ Nest: Added interconnection with Old Penshire Wharf.
    • Sanguine Stand: Changed location.
    • Serenite: Added interconnection with Malus and Vengeance.
    • Soggy Bottom: Renamed (formerly Staplendun).
    • Sparrowfall: Updated boat locations.
    • Tarakan: New addition (under Redmill).
    • The Barrowlands: Upgraded to Village.
    • Vengeance: Added interconnection with Malus and Serenite.
    • Wizards Rest: Upgraded to Crossroads Village.
• Multiple Characters: Players with pledges that include additional character slots can now create and play with those additional characters. As mentioned previously all these characters share reputation, bank, pledge rewards, add-on items, and property. Additionally, if the first character has a last name, all additional characters will have that same last name.
  • Multiple Characters Delayed: We chose to postpone work on this feature to focus on other server tasks related to localization, guild warfare, and agriculture.
• Player Homes: We created several new home decorations and fixed various bugs.
  • Framed Cover Art: This pledge reward captures Denis Loubet’s incredible cover art in a framed piece that you can hang on the walls of your home.
  • Stone Statues: Five large stone statues of the Satyr, Kobold, Zombie, Elemental and Bear.
  • Snow People: In the spirit of the winter season, we have plain and fancy groups (man, woman, boy, girl) of snow people that can be placed. The plain snow people can be crafted in game with snowballs (gained from the Replenishing Snowball Box pledge reward that all backers get), and the fancy snow people can be purchased in the Add On Store.
  • Aether Amplifiers Fix: We fixed these so they now work on Mac and Linux again.
  • Keep and Castle Walls: We have turned the walls surrounding Keep and Castle lots in static areas (Owl’s Head, Ardoris, Estercove, Port Mirren, and Brave Coast) back on. Keep and Castle lots in Dynamic Player Owned Towns will remain free of pre-placed walls. NOTE: Any decorations placed where the walls go will be hidden by the walls. Unfortunately, you will have to swap houses to clear the lot to get those decorations back.
  • Water Placement Fix: We fixed an issue where some houses and buildings that were not water homes could be placed in water.
• Crafting: Most of the crafting time was spent on Agriculture as mentioned above, but we did get some other crafting work done too!
  • Fishing in Swamps: Fish can now be gathered in the swampy areas of New Britannia.
  • Animation Fixes: We fixed numerous issues related to using crafting stations and gathering (arm twitches, misaligned tools, etc.).
  • Crafting Tool Repair Kits: We added a special tool repair kit that is specifically for repairing crafting tools (and nothing else). These will bring the primary and secondary durability up when used.
  • Dye Recipes: There are now 31 different dye colors that players can craft at the Tanning crafting station. Please note that we do not yet have all the proper ingredients in (especially for the warmer colors which historically used roses) so, for now they are using placeholders that correspond to the color (ex. bananas for yellows). Craftable colors include:
    • Aqua
    • Blue
    • Brown
    • Green
    • Grey
    • Orange
    • Pink
    • Purple
    • Red
    • Yellow
    • Dark Aqua
    • Dark Blue
    • Dark Brown
    • Dark Grey
    • Dark Green
    • Dark Orange
    • Dark Pink
    • Dark Purple
    • Dark Red
    • Dark Yellow
    • Light Aqua
    • Light Blue
    • Light Brown
    • Light Green
    • Light Grey
    • Light Orange
    • Light Pink
    • Light Purple
    • Light Red
    • Light Yellow
    • Royal Purple (pledge reward)
• Avatars and Wearables: We made various additions to avatars and wearables, primarily with dyes.
  • Primary/Secondary Dye System: On wearable items that are setup to support it, players can now select where they want the dye applied. Primary use will change the color on most of the clothing item. Secondary use will only change the color of the accent sections (ex. piping at the shoulders) on the clothing item. For now, this is working for most Cloth Armor and many of the clothing items (including all dresses).
  • Dye Color Preview: You can now view the color that will be applied in the paperdoll before the dye is applied.
  • Oracle Cloak Functionality: The “secret in-game effect that wearing the Oracle Cloak will invoke” is no longer secret to those who wear it.
  • Holly Wreath Hat: As part of our continued Holiday festivities, we have two lovely Holly Wreath hats that avatars can wear. The version with candles can be purchased in the Add On Store, and the version without candles can be crafted in the game.
  • Guard Emote: There is now a looping emote where the Avatar stands at attention and displays their equipped weapon. Players can learn the emote from the Ardoris Castle guards.
  • “Sitting Camera”: The camera now automatically lowers position when the avatar is in a sitting or lying down position
  • Emote Animation Fixes: Fixed lots of animation issues, including everyone doing the Darkstarr salute randomly and twitchy arms during some emotes (slap, ponder, shake fist, facepalm, raise hand, and talk angry).
  • Pure Black and Pure White Dyes: In addition to the craftable dyes mentioned above, Pure Black and Pure White dyes are exclusive rare colors that can only be purchased from the Add On Store in bundles of 12.
• Fireworks: Just in time for New Year’s Eve, rocket fireworks are now working in the game! We plan to expand these over time to include more colors and more types; including mortars, fountains, pinwheels, missile launchers, etc. The goal is to give players enough variety that they can produce their own fireworks shows (with musical accompaniment of course!). Look for more varieties and colors next release in honor of Chinese New Year.
  • Replenishing Fireworks Box: This is the original replenishing fireworks box we sold in the Add On Store (which contains Red Rockets), so it has been renamed to the Red Rocket Replenishing Fireworks Box. Note that if you already claimed the original one in game, you will keep that old one until the next wipe and receive the new one (with functionality and new name) as an additional reward.
  • Blue Rocket Replenishing Fireworks Box
  • Yellow Rocket Replenishing Fireworks Box
• Sound Effects: We finally have a full time sound designer, but he joined us at the end of the release so he only had time to fully update a few sounds.
  • Breakables: We finally have a sound that, when you smash crates and barrels, does not sound like a gunshot!
  • Weather: Wind, Thunder, and Rain sound effects have been updated.
• Dev+ Asset Packs: As part of the pledges at Developer and above, we periodically deliver asset packs (although they are not as frequent as we had hoped). This month our goal was to improve that so we provided asset packs of updated avatar animations, automatons, and the Clockwork Pets. Another asset pack is expected to go out before the end of the week that will include all the wind and geothermal power items.
• Localization: Various tasks were completed and bugs were fixed to support the ongoing localization effort, including adding support for gender. All the initial languages are now in progress and advancing steadily. Spanish is already commanding a large lead at over 50% completion (of current text)!
• Grand Tour 25: As with each release, we will have a Grand Tour. Completing this quest is the ONLY way to gain this rare reward. The hat for this release is the Nomad hat.

So, now that it is clear what you can expect, we should also be as clear about what you should NOT expect:

• Performance: We have only done rudimentary optimizations, and we do not yet have a full suite of performance fallbacks (LODs, etc.). This means the game will be quite slow on older machines, and due to memory usage, and might be unstable in certain conditions (like densely decorated areas). With each release, we will be doing further optimizations and adding to our fallbacks to improve performance.
• Crafting: The crafting system is in the game as a framework, but is still missing some key components like a full suite of Refining/Production Skills and breadth/depth of recipes.
• Game Loop: Release 25 is a further iteration on our rudimentary game loop, but is still missing some key components. Expect this to expand with each subsequent release, but it won’t be truly complete until we hit Beta next year.
• Advanced Player Housing: There are some advanced features for player housing, including advanced permissions (ex. renting) and ceiling decorations that are not yet integrated. Expect to see these appear in future releases.
• Visual Quality: Efforts to improve visual quality are ongoing. We will continue to iterate on these until we have highly competitive visuals.
• Pledge Rewards: Pledge Rewards that have been built and have tech to support them are in the game; all other rewards are awaiting either content creation or tech support.  You can find an updated list of these items in known issues.
• Persistence: As part of development, we will need to periodically wipe data including characters, property, etc. As we near official launch the frequency should decrease, but there will definitely be a wipe right before launch. So consider everything gained during early access temporary.

Here are links to instructions and known issues. Thank you again for your continued support. This is truly the most amazing community we have ever worked with, and we are proud to be on this journey with you.

Sincerely,
Starr Long
aka Darkstarr
Executive Producer

We need all your help with testing the new patches, putting more stress on our multiplayer servers, and testing the new game content, so please join us in playing Release 25!

If you have not backed the game yet, you will need to register and login at www.shroudoftheavatar.com, select the “Pledge or Send Gift!” button in the right side-bar, and purchase a pledge at the $45 Adventurer level or above. The basic Adventurer level pledge is also available on Steam Early Access.

Release 25 Player Instructions

Release 25 Known Issues

Patch Notes